Smart Technology Might Save Bees

The plight of bees is no small matter. These important pollinators are facing myriad problems ranging from car exhaust to a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides, all threatening to push bees to extinction. It’s a terrifying thought because if bees go, we go. We starve without bees to pollinate crops.

Can technology come to the rescue and help us monitor and perhaps save these insects?

Ambitious beekeepers as well as scientists have used everything from hive sensors to radio tags to study bees and their plight. But it is one of the first groups we’ve heard of that is using open source hardware, software, and community-collected data to understand what is going on with bees.